small life, slow life

I remember when I started this blog.

I had become recently jobless, by way of walking out of said job in a dramatic fashion. And then I spent the next few weeks wandering my boyfriend’s neighborhood with absolutely nothing to do. Often, I’d go to Starbucks with a bone dry cup from the day before, paying the refill price because my money was running out and I hadn’t secured the job at lululemon yet.

I was sitting on the patio with one of those refill drinks, and I sketched (not something I ever really do) the layout of a website, and the banner and the name.

I was trying on the idea that I could be a writer, like a real writer. I had recently been hired to edit and ghostwrite a spiritual book, and I was also writing weekly for the website Healthy Bitch Daily, run by the people who had written Skinny Bitch. I was making a whole $25 per article and man, I thought I was just on the cusp of really making it.

And so my early blogs here have this adopted voice of an “expert,” of someone who knew what the hell she was talking about.

I did not know what the hell I was talking about.

Those early blogs make me squirm. They are half A Beautiful Mess and half Danielle LaPorte in voice, doing neither successfully though. I have thought many times about deleting the early ones, with my PicMonkey graphics and my “I know what the hell I’m talking about” attitude.

But once, I remember scrolling back and back and back through Danielle LaPorte’s writing, back when it was White Hot Truth, and I eventually came to the beginning, where she wrote maybe a few lines, mostly quotes, and definitely wasn’t getting likes or comments or retweets. She was just there, at the text box, showing up and trying it on.

I liked that she left those there. I liked that she let herself be seen like that.

At some point, I dropped the “I know what the hell I’m talking about” voice and just wrote, but I was still trying things on. Maybe I’m a craft blogger. (Nope, so bad at crafts.) Maybe I’m a hippie health blogger. (Nope, so bad at cooking and mold freaks me out.) Maybe I’ll write about relationships and ex-boyfriends. I milked that subject for a long time. Thought I’d finally “made it” in the blogosphere. Until I couldn’t stand talking about that subject anymore.

Now, I don’t really know what kind of writer I am. I just know that I’m not trying on any more voices. For better or worse, this is my voice. I’m not a hippie farmer, I’m not a fitness fanatic, I’m not a crafty mom. I’m just this person. Just me.

Lately, I’ve been having this feeling like blogging is going to go away for a while. It’s just all going to be instagram. I mean, how many actual websites are we even looking at anymore? Very few, right? It’s all being opened through Insta or Facebook. And in that way, if I continue to write here, I can stay free like this. Because I’m not posting “link in profile” on Instagram; I’m not posting these blogs to Facebook. I’m just here, figuring it out. And there is kind of a beautiful freedom in that.

I am super stressed that there are only five blogs left after this one! I still haven’t made a concrete decision. Keep going? Do another 100 days? Take a week off? I have no idea. I thought the answer would have arrived by now! But I guess it’s still not time yet.

I was talking to my friend Sabrina a few weeks ago about some decisions she was considering, and she said, “I’m gonna go with my mom’s advice on this one: ‘Come time, come answer’.”

I had never heard that before, and its simplicity and weight hit me at the exact same time.

I guess in five more days, I’ll know.

Come time, come answer.